


When the Ice Breaks

by pweeyuh



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canada, Ice Fishing, M/M, Nunavut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:35:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pweeyuh/pseuds/pweeyuh
Summary: The thing he hated the most about Nunavut was the bitter cold. He thought the winter was pretty and all, the vast white of the snow stretching across the tundra and into the ocean, but it was never light enough for him to see it. He didn’t like the dark much, either. In the half-light, he always thought he saw things that weren’t there.Happy birthday, Elena.
Relationships: Jet/Sokka (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	When the Ice Breaks

“Do you have a toque?” Hakoda asked. His hand was on Jet’s shoulder. He looked concerned in a way that made Jet feel like he had something to be worried about.

“Oh, um,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hat, “yeah. Thank you.”

“That’s not warm enough,” Sokka insisted, taking the toque from his hand and putting it back on the coat hook. They pulled a trapper hat over his ears, smiling at him when he gave them a blank, shocked look.

“You own one of these?” he asked incredulously.

“We all do,” they shrugged. “They’re good for cold weather.”

“But you’re not wearing one!”

“Yeah I am,” they pulled down the hood of their coat to reveal their own hat. “I’m just not complaining about it.” He frowned. Nazife touched her head to his leg, and he reached down to rub between her ears. Sokka watched them, a little smile on their face.

“She’ll get cold on the ice,” they said quietly. “We should put her in boots.”

“She’ll hate boots. Pyrenees dogs are made for the mountains, Sokka, she’ll be fine on the ice.”

“But she’d be so cute in boots!” they replied, kneeling down and taking one of her paws in their hands. She whined.

“You’re making her  _ cry _ , Sokka,” Jet snapped, taking her leash and leading her out to the truck. She lay dutifully in the backseat, and Jet kissed the top of her head before he closed the door and sat up front.

“You can’t torture my service dog, you know,” he said when Sokka joined him. “Especially not while she’s working. What if I have an emergency and she can’t help me because she can’t walk in those stupid boots?”

“She’d be fine in the boots!” They turned their head to look back at the dog. “Right, Nazife? You’d be fine in boots. I bet you’d like the boots, right, sweetie?” She tilted her head, and Sokka laughed. “Okay, come on, let’s go.”

“ _ You’re _ the one driving.  _ You _ come on.” They looked at him for a moment.

“You should have brought your eyepatch,” they concluded as they started the car.

“It does no good. I’m already blind.”

“Your doctor said it might help.”

“It’s uncomfortable, anyways,” he continued, shaking his head. “The strap always hurts my ear.” Sokka sighed, but chose not to argue further. Jet put a hand on their leg as they drove.

“I’m sorry for being rough with you,” he said after a brief silence.

“It’s fine,” they didn’t take their eyes off the road, “I just wish you’d take your health as seriously as I do, you know? I mean, if you die, everything Katara and I have done will be wasted.” He scoffed, and Sokka looked up. “And I’d miss you very much! That goes without saying!” They pulled over, turned to look at him, then cupped his face in their hands. Jet shivered at their cold fingertips.

“Jîno Minamoto,” they began, making him squirm at the use of his legal name, “I love you.” Jet looked away.

“Stop—”

“I’m serious, dude. I love you.” He sighed.

“I love you, too.”

Being from Tennessee, Jet had been fishing many times throughout his youth, but never once had he been ice fishing. He recalled a time before he was broken, before he had to cup his hand over his stomach when he tried to stand, when he and Arî would skip Islamic school to go fishing at Cheatham Lake. He recalled before that when Dozan would take him fishing on the Zêy Koya. He was just a little kid then, but he remembered the warmth of the sun on his face, the sound of his cousin casting his fishing line whilst singing old Kurdish songs.

The thing he hated the most about Nunavut was the bitter cold. He thought the winter was pretty and all, the vast white of the snow stretching across the tundra and into the ocean, but it was never light enough for him to see it. He didn’t like the dark much, either. In the half-light, he always thought he saw things that weren’t there. His neurologist had warned him about this sort of thing, about hallucinations, but he hadn’t taken her seriously until he came to Iqaluit. Today was a dark, bitterly cold day in February, and Jet could feel his bones aching from only spending a minute outside. The warm air blowing from the vents did virtually nothing to heat up the truck, so Jet was left shivering and blowing into his mittened hands. He was wearing sealskin mittens, which, much like the rest of his wardrobe, belonged to Hakoda in the ‘90s. Sokka seemed cautious to give them to him, not because the mittens had any sentimental value to the Illivats but because they were worried he’d make some song and dance about real animal skins. In all honesty, Jet didn’t really care. They were warm and he was cold. It wasn’t a question for him.

He looked up from his mittens when the road started to get bumpy. Craning his neck, he saw the distant lights of the city getting further from them. They were headed east. Jet raised an eyebrow.

“Are we driving on water right now?” he asked. Sokka nodded.

“Yeah. It’s better to get a little further out. The best fish are in deeper water.”

“What the fuck, Sokka?”

“What?”

“We’re driving over the open fucking ocean! What if the fucking ice breaks?”

“The ice won’t break,” they said calmly, “it’s, like, three feet thick.” Jet nodded, his eyes wide with panic.

“Are you afraid of the ocean?” they asked suddenly.

Jet considered his answer for a long while. He had never really thought about the ocean––wherever he was, it always seemed so far away. Even in Howard Beach, he never really went down to the beach. In Maine and Massachusetts he went into the ocean just fine, but he never really swam in it. In Iraq there was no ocean, just the river. The closest thing to the ocean in Nashville was Cheatham Lake. Although Syria isn’t landlocked, he never made it to the coast; the furthest west he got was Damascus, and that was too far south to be along the coast. He liked to look at the ocean––sometimes in the summer he could see it from the living room window––but the thought of driving over the open ocean in a 9,000-pound pickup didn’t necessarily sound attractive to him.

“Yes,” he responded finally. “I guess I am.” Sokka chuckled.

“That's okay. Nazife and I will keep you safe.” He nodded.

Sokka parked the truck about a kilometre out from the shore and began to walk further east. Jet stepped cautiously onto the ice, expecting to slip. He was a little shocked when he didn’t. Nazife didn’t slip when she was let out of the car, either. She was clearly excited, but knew she was on duty and couldn’t just run off and leave him. She was working. She whined a little, but stuck close to his side. Sokka continued walking a little longer until they noticed Jet’s inability to catch his breath.

“Let’s set up here,” they decided, beginning to set up the dark house. Jet offered to help, but Sokka rejected him, insisting that he should sit down and conserve his energy.

The shanty was stuffy, but Jet didn’t mind––the stale air was more comfortable than the biting cold outside. Sokka had removed their parka and was trying to get a hole in the ice with a hand auger. Once a puncture was made, they stuck the blade of a saw inside, trying to carve out a large enough path for their spears to pass through. Jet sat on one of the camping chairs he brought along, a quilt wrapped around his shoulders and Nazife’s head on his lap.

“How do you stay so warm?” he asked, and they looked up, their eyes glinting in the half-light.

“I’m not malnourished,” they grunted, wiping a bit of sweat from their forehead, “and I grew up here. I’m used to it.”

“I’m gaining  _ some _ weight,” he protested. “That isn’t fair.”

“Not enough, if you ask me. You’re too tall to be so skinny.” Jet coughed into his hand, and Sokka looked up from their work.

“Are you okay?” they asked, their gruffness melting away. They stepped over the growing hole in the ice to kneel in front of him. “Can you breathe?” They pulled some hair from his forehead, frowning at how his teeth chattered.

“I’m fine, azizm,” he reassured them, “It’s just cold.” Sokka took off one mitten to make sure his parka was zipped up all the way. He almost laughed at how much they were mothering him. It reminded him of their sister.

“You need to be careful. Do you want hand warmers? Do you have them in your boots?”

“I have them, I’m fine.” Sokka, still looking concerned, nodded and reluctantly returned to their spot. They picked the saw up once more and worked for another five minutes until the hole was around ten inches in diameter. Once they decided they were finished, they grabbed their spear and sat in their own camping chair. Nazife shifted a little from where she lay so Sokka could comfortably scratch her haunches.

Jet watched the shadows dance around on the walls of the dark house. His hand warmers were starting to lose their heat, and the cold was becoming more acute. Sokka had put their coat back on. The silence was comfortable now—they had found they didn’t need to talk much if they weren’t bickering. The two of them understood each other in a way that went beyond words. They weren’t struggling to figure out something to say like they were when Katara was around, and Jet wasn’t trying to be smart and polite and not talk too much about Syria like he was when Hakoda was around. It was just them, in a small, dark tent on the ice, a heat lantern and a dog between them. Every so often, the back of a fish would appear in the water and Sokka would try to pierce it with his spear, but even if he did manage to catch it, it would just slip away, turning the water red with its blood.


End file.
